St. Annes N.S.
This was our last week with the aquarium and we made the most of it! We invited all of the classes in our school into our classroom and gave presentations on our sea creatures. The presentations went really well and the classes were delighted to meet Qui-Gon Fin, Luke Starwalkerand Obi-Won Prawnobi. Obi- Won shed his skin on Wednesday which is a great sign that he is healthy and growing. Sadly, the tank was collected yesterday. We were devastated to see them go as we have grown so attached to each of them. We learned so much and it was a wonderful experience for us. We were delighted when Qui-Gon put up a fight as he didn’t want to leave the tank. We think he must have been very happy in our classroom. We would definitely recommend this project to others!
St. Mary’s & St. Gerard’s N.S.
On Thursday, Sealife came and took our amazing friends Sparky, Guiseppe, Fwed and Spongebob away.We were all sad yet very proud at the same time. We were proud because with the help of Ms. Malone we nursed Sparky back to full health. We learnt a lot from the experience.
During the Explorers’ project, we learnt about:
oHow to care for Flounders, Starfish and Ghost Prawns
oLeatherback Turtles and other sea creatures
oIreland’s fishing industry
oHow much of Ireland’s landmass was under water
oHow to design boats
We will never forget this wonderful experience and we are very thankful for being able to partake in this project.
St. Patrick’s N.S.
On the 8th of February 2016, Eimear and Pat from Sealife Bray, made an exciting visit to our school, St. Patricks N.S. They came to give us some marine life from Sealife. They gave us a flatfish, a crustacean (a prawn) and an invertebrate (a starfish). Eimear and Pat showed us all the equipment like the filter, the chiller, the air pump etc. They showed us the siphon which is really just like a mini vacuum cleaner. They also showed us how to use the cleaning magnet to clean the glass of the tank.
We decided to call the flatfish Flappy, the prawn Ghost and the starfish Twilight. We chose these names because the flatfish is rather flappy when he swims, the prawn is see through like a ghost and the starfish is like a star twinkling in the twilight.
Two days after we got the fish, a girl from our class spotted something rather unusual with Twilight. Twilight was floating on top of the water with only one leg stuck to the glass. We decided to wait a while and see if it was okay. A little while later we saw that it was okay because it had stuck back to the glass.
The next day we went on a school trip to Sealife on the 10th of February. We saw all the different marine life in their tanks and we got to touch some starfish but the starfish that we touched was a different type of starfish than the one we have in our classroom, we also learnt lots of facts about the creatures that we have in the tank in our classroom. We asked Sealife lots of questions, including why Twilight was floating on top of the water. They said that in the ocean, starfish float on top of the water and drift off with the waves to find something new to stick onto.
Flappy hides under the sand most of the time but he sometimes comes up on top of it. He is quite shy, unlike Ghost who likes to show off a bit - Ghost swims around the tank and he loves the attention! Twilight sticks to the glass mostly but sometimes floats to the top. Often all you can see is Ghost swimming around the tank because Twilight is stuck on to the glass behind the filter and Flappy is buried under the sand.
We really enjoy having the fish in our classroom!
St. Pius X G.N.S.
Keeping up with the K’s - Week five in the Big Brother tank - The final straw
Kourtney has been doing a lot of meditation this week. She and Kasper have been having tickle fights and staring competitions lately. Although Kourtney stands the winner for staring, Kasper gets the trophy for Strictly Come Dancing!
Both classes have been busy doing projects, poems, raps and plays about our sea creatures. When the time came to say goodbye Pat and Aisling took Kasper and Kourtney back to Sealife. We were sad to see them leave, but happy to remember the ups and downs we have had.
Scares stares and love affairs
We had some great times in the past few weeks, some of our favourite memories are......
•When Khloe lost 2 legs!
•When Khloe Jnr. lost 1 leg!
•The staring competition we lost to Kourtney.
•Kasper trying to do a headstand but failing badly! (We don’t think we’ll make a gymnast out of him!)
•Kourtney opening up her gills!!!!
•Kasper shedding his skin.
•The arrival of Khloe Jnr.
We have had so many good times with our sea creatures. We are very grateful to Sealifefor this wonderful opportunity. Au Revoir from the two 5th classes in St. Pius X G.N.S.!